-They never stop playing. The World Series champ is crowned in October and spring training starts in March; they hand out awards from November until January. By the time June hits no one cares who won the old championship. Why should I? The NBA is even worse.

-People take this stuff way too seriously. People burn trash and turn over cars if their team wins the championship. The NFL draft has roughly 2,000 hours of television coverage and entire magazines devoted to it. People watch baseball preseason games. I mean, dear God, man.

-Gambling is pathetic. It is no secret that Super Bowl Sunday is the day most wagers happen in this country. It is also the day a wife or girlfriend is most likely to be beaten by her lover. Is anything less sympathetic than the guy who bets his mortgage on something as asinine as whether the first score will be a run or a pass, and then proceeds to lash out at his wife when his hunch doesn’t pay?

-I hate the fans. Adults lose all perspective when it comes to these dumb games. I was at a Raider game in Oakland when a full-on riot broke out because my brother was wearing a John Elway jersey. My favorite part was getting hit with a beer bottle by a sixty-something-year-old woman without teeth. Classy.

-Political jingoism. The NFL is the worst at this. Are you ready for some football? Yeah! And let’s kick some Iraqi butt! Cue the Hummer commercial and the umpteenth Pat Tillman memorial service. By the way, 95 percent of all NFL material is made in Central America.

-The destruction of amazing bodies for money. Particularly the NFL and NBA—baseball can hardly be said to have amazing athletes—some of the world’s best physiques—true natural wonders—are ruined for the sake of entertainment and corporate profit. It makes me sick. Do the players make too much money? No. The owners and TV guys? Yes.

-Endless advertising. You’re at the stadium and the game is cruising along. Suddenly, for no particular reason, everyone stands still for two or three minutes and all sense of momentum and flow is gone: The TV timeout. At home, its worse; they put the game in a corner of the screen while some bozo interviews the latest star of the hit TV show “American Fat Asses,” or whatever.

-Announcers. Here’s an SAT-style phrasing for you. Paul Maguire : Intelligent Commentary :: Battery Acid : Heart Burn.

-Sports Talk Shows.

Jim Rome: “Tom Brady is good.”

Caller: “Yo, Romey, Tom Brady is good.”

Jim Rome: “Rack him!”